The present invention relates to garments, and more particularly to garments known generally in the art as compression shorts.
Compression shorts are garments worn by individuals for a variety of purposes, but are primarily worn by active individuals and athletes engaged in sports activities. Essentially, a compression short serves as a type of girdle, providing compressive support to various areas of the wearer""s body, including the back, hips, pelvis, abdomen, groin and thigh areas. Compression shorts are particularly used by those who have suffered some type of injury to those areas of the body, either for additional support of those areas permanently weakened by injury, or for temporary support of those areas while an injury heals.
Compression shorts are often manufactured using stretchable or elastomeric fabrics such as Lycra(trademark) or Spandex(trademark). Typically, a compression short is constructed such that this elastomeric fabric is placed in tension when the short is pulled onto the wearer""s body, thereby providing some degree of compressive support for the wearer. The particular part of the body receiving this compressive support depends upon the nature of the construction of the garment.
There many examples of such compression shorts in the art. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,041,441 and 6,023,789 are directed to simple athletic shorts constructed of elastomeric fabric having various panels sewn together. U.S. Pat. No. 5,131,100 discloses an athletic compression short which comprises an elastic waistband, a pair of legs formed of stretchable elastic knit fabric and a crotch panel formed of stretchable elastic knit fabric. The front portion of the crotch panel comprises an open mesh wrap. Other relatively simple compression shorts are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,403,271, 6,006,363 and 6,161,222.
Such simple shorts, although capable of providing some general level of compression to portions of a user""s body, generally do not target such compression to a particular area of the wearer""s body and not to others; rather, they simply xe2x80x9csqueezexe2x80x9d whatever portion of the body the fabric overlies.
Further, such shorts don""t necessarily increase resistance to undesired range of movement. In other words, they do not provide specific resistence to certain unidirectional and multidirectional motions. In many instances, limiting certain muscle actions is very important when one is trying to heal from an injury such as an abdominal tear or groin pull. Other prior art shorts have attempted to ameliorate this problem as it relates to the lower back by adding a separate elastomeric belt. An example of such a short is to be found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,205,815. However, this short does not effectively limit certain muscle actions in the abdomen, groin and legs.
Compression wraps to create tension in specific joint and muscle motions have been used for years in sports medicine (i.e. tensor or elastic wraps). Until now there has not been a single garment that reproduces the lower abdominal, pelvic and hip anatomy to provide specific unidirectional and multidirectional support to both muscle action and motion. This garment is designed to create compression for stability and tension to protect injured or recovering muscles. It also may be used to prevent abdominal, pelvic or hip injuries.
There remains, therefore, a pressing need for a compression short which is constructed to provide not only general compressive forces to areas of the body covered by the short, but also to provide specific extra forces to certain areas of the body to limit certain undesired muscle activities in the abdomen, groin and legs. Specifically, a better garment is needed to deal with lower abdominal muscle injuries, pelvic instabilities, and weaknesses in hip-flexor, abductor, extensor, rotator and adductor muscle groups.
The present invention provides more specific compressive protection to a wearer""s body than that provided by prior art shorts. The short of the preferred embodiment of the invention is constructed of a plurality of strips of elastomeric material sewn together to form the short. These strips are oriented primarily in diagonal configurations, which configurations have been determined by the inventor to be particularly helpful in immobilizing, to some extent, a wearer""s abdomen, groin, and leg areas, in addition to the wearer""s back, hip and pelvic areas.
More particularly, the preferred embodiment of the inventive compression short has a front portion and a rear portion, these portions attached to one another at left and right side seams. Like most traditional shorts, the compression short of the present invention has a waistband encircling the upper edges thereof, and a gusset formed between the front and rear portions of in the crotch area thereof, delineating thereby a trunk portion of the short from a leg portion of the short.
Two groups of elastomeric strips of fabric extend downwardly across the front portion of the short, and two groups of elastomeric strips of fabric extend downwardly across the rear portion of the short, each group of strips extending from the upper portion of the short downwardly, or diagonally, to the lower portion of the short, from one side to the opposite.
In the most preferred embodiment of the invention, the strips, which may comprise elastomeric strips of fabric of the type sewn into men""s briefs to act as waistbands (generally known in the art simply as xe2x80x9celasticxe2x80x9d), extend downwardly from the respective left and right seams at an angle of between 40xc2x0 and 50xc2x0 from the seam. The strips may have a width of between 2 inches and 4 inches. Other strips of the same material may also form the other portions of the short.